Some Video From The Largest Gig We've Ever Played Using Yorkville Elites

[wheresgrant3]

I thought I'd share this with you guys... this is sort of a testament to the power, reliability and value we've seen using Yorkville Elites (EF500P & LS800P).

 

We are a party/event cover band based in upstate NY and we run our own sound and lights in about 70% of our gig situations. About four years ago we purchased a pair if EF500P and LS800P subs based on many recommendations in this very forum. Paired with an Allen & Heath Mix Wiz 16:2... seemed to be the combo that everyone has recommended. In total this rig has been used for more than 250 gigs with only two needed repairs (a blown HF driver and a blown fuse for the LS800P). It's been a great rig for small, medium and large venues... but what about a small arena?

 

On Halloween we were contracted to play an annual event we've played for 5 years with our sponsor (local FM rock station). It's a Halloween costume party thrown by the radio station, and each year this event has gotten bigger and bigger. The first event was in a Hotel banquet hall for 100 listeners, and each year the turnout increased. For a few years, they moved it to a 3000 sq ft wedding Hall and we were playing to 250-300 people. This year they opened it to the public for the first time and moved it to the local Civic Center which seats 1500 people (events floor 15,000 sq feet). We immediately contacted the station and organizers and told them for a venue that size we absolutely needed someone to run professional lights and sound. For a month we were assured they would have adequate services contracted. About three days before the event we were notified that they were extremely over budget and didn't have the means or funds to contract the sound company. We were stuck using our own PA for the event. Panic ensued.

 

We tried to make the best of it and run some other powered tops for extra reinforcement but there was nothing locally available on the day of the event. All we had was the EF500P's and LS800 subs. Thankfully the facilities manager curtained off the events floor at 1/3 of the room leaving a barrier between the concert stage and the back of the events room. In the remaining, space they filled tables, food and beer vendors. So the space we were looking to fill was approximately 100' by 50' with a 30ft ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course during soundcheck the system was loud, and the room pretty boomy. We just didn't know how it would sound with a few hundred people in the room... if they even showed. Once we dialed in as much as we could (no additional crossover... just the AH mixer, FOH EQ, and dbx compressor... no gate or additional effects) we ran the sound as naked as we could with just a thin layer of compression over the drums and vocals. The result was nothing short of amazement. Not only did the rig hold up for the space, but the power and punch of these pair speakers was completely evident. We had never pushed the system this hard before, and we were only one notch above unity... plenty of head room. In total about 850 showed for the event and at any time we were playing to more than 500 people. This video is from the first opening songs and it doesn't even do justice to how everything sounded.

 

1st Set Opener

 

I've seen national acts play on this stage in my youth... Nine Inch Nails, Megadeath, Skid Row... and never did I ever hear even a decent mix. The system was always over powered, and audio overblown. Less may be more sometimes.

 

I just thought I'd share this with everyone. There are lots of positive comments about Yorkville speakers and well.. I couldn't try hard enough to give them a great endorsement. I remember objections from some of my bandmates when were looked to purchase these over some higher priced, lower powered JBL active speakers, and the sales rep specifically said... "Well if it makes you feel any better I'll put a JBL nameplate on these... the Yorkville's a best speaker in that price/class". Things have certainly changed now (QSC's JBL's), but at the time I believe this to be true.

 

A big shout out to Dan and Steve at Audio East who really guided me through this purchase. Unfortunately the speakers were too expensive to ship from MA so we got them local but we bought everything else we could from them (board/snake). Those guys are awesome to deal with.

[Unalaska]

That's great! Glad to hear the gig worked out for you. I've been stuck in the not enough rig for the gig situation (airforce ball with leftover borrowed speakers, JRX115 over EV MTL1X covering eh, 250 peeps, we made it work). Then again concert volume throughout a room isn't the intended goal. I was told to bring quite a lot of gear for a 500 person microsoft party last week but when I get there the dance floor area is only 24-24' and no one is looking for high SPL. But that was that event, others are different. It's good to be able to scale down when needed.

[tele-vangelist]

Well done!

[6Imzadi]

Very good. I didn't use the headphones, so this laptop sound wasn't very good. Looks like you had a great show to a good crowd.

[Mike M]

I also use Yorkville foh cabs. This past September I provided sound for a local town outdoor festival (3 bands, karaoke, etc.) on the waterfront. I had requested three 20 amp dedicated circuits but upon my arrival only had two 15 amp circuits to run lights, band gear, and foh.

 

I brought my Yorkville tx8/tx9s rig to use but instead drove back to the storage and swapped out the two tx8 cabs to two tx4 cabs. I used the tx4 cabs over a pair of Yorkville tx9s subs.

 

I ran the tx4/9s rig pretty hot but all were pleased with the sound. Right before the fireworks display, I was to play a recording of the National Anthem, after which, the event coordinator was supposed to call the fireworks crew to start the display. The event coordinator called the fireworks crew prior to the National Anthem and the fireworks crew said that the call wasn't necessary.... as they could hear the music 1/3 mile away!

 

I guess that my rig had some throw!

 

I'm pleased with my Yorkville cabs and processors.

 

Mike M

[Bobby1Note]

Grant,

 

Thanks for posting that video. You may have just convinced me to keep my EF500ob's. I had been thinking of selling them to buy a pair of U15pb's.

 

re; Yorkville customer service,

 

I fired off an email to Yorkville customer service, in the wee hours of this morning(Sunday AM), fully expecting to not have an answer before business hours Monday. The customer service rep had already answered my email, before I got up today. In fact, we shared a couple of emails this afternoon (Sunday). :thu:

 

I had emailed regarding availability of the LS2100p subwoofers (21", 2400w, 6"vc, 134dB max spl) They are available for shipping btw. We also spoke about amplifier recommendations for the passive version of the same sub. (LS2104)

 

Bob

[djr]

So you used just one sub and one top on each side ? cool I'm thinking about going powered FOH soon

[dangordan]

Congrats, pulled it off splendidly!

[Shaster]

Cool..... What's nice is that the system doesn't sound stressed. Seems like you had enough rig for the gig after all.

[WynnD]

The 5000 watts might be enough power crowd will never believe what you did, but I've seen 200 real watts into 4 extremely high efficiency cabinets be used for a crowd that size with the entire band mic'd. (No subs, but there were no subs back then and the crowd was 18-30 years old in a 3.2 beer club that took about 10 minutes to push your way across. Dancing was shoulder to shoulder. Gigs should always be that good.)

 

Yorkville has always made some good stuff.

[stevie j]

 

I've seen 200 real watts into 4 extremely high efficiency cabinets

 

 

What cabs were these? to me, extremely high efficiency would be 110dB+ 1W/m

 

and

What is a real Watt?:poke:

[Craig Vecchione]

 

The 5000 watts might be enough power crowd will never believe what you did, but I've seen 200 real watts into 4 extremely high efficiency cabinets be used for a crowd that size with the entire band mic'd. (No subs, but there were no subs back then and the crowd was 18-30 years old in a 3.2 beer club that took about 10 minutes to push your way across. Dancing was shoulder to shoulder. Gigs should always be that good.) Yorkville has always made some good stuff.

 

 

You never stop beating that drum, do you?

[modulusman]

You never stop beating that drum, do you?

Yeah, Craig but you can't hear it because he is not using subs.

[WynnD]

Altec Lansing A7 Voice of the Theaters. Large heavy and the horns are 110 db at 1 watt 1 meter. (And they can be run down to 500 htz.) The cabinets were rated about 50 watts RMS each. The McIntosh 2100 was an audiophile's tube amp. It wasn't a large band but they opened for Three Dog Night in Columbus Ohio that year. (I'm assuming they didn't provide the sound system for that. I'm also assuming that the nay-sayers haven't opened for one the hottest bands at their peak in a large venue.) Their lead vocalist is still a working singer. (With the lead in two top 40 hits and now mostly is a studio singer doing commercial work. How many singers that you don't know can say that after 40 years.)

 

Not talking about my band. Just the best band that year in a major college town. I was just a fan who was interested in the equipment.

[Craig Vecchione]

Wynn, you do realize that when designers built 110dB monstrosities, it was because amplifiers were incredibly expensive, and power was limited to a couple of hundred watts by technology. You keep mentioning "nay sayers" but nobody is saying it couldn't be or wasn't done. It's not necessary to cover 850 people with 200 watts. Bigger amps are cheap, and lightweight frontloaded speakers that sound way better than the VOT titans are also easy to come by.

 

The good old days weren't all that good.

[WynnD]

Times and things have changed. With enough money and no interest in classic looking systems, things can be better. Some of us like the look of classic stuff. I'm one, but it's mixed with better drivers, better amps and better signal processing. (That's the stuff that's easy to hide.)

[Gomer Pyle]

Although they weren't used for high power kick and bass back then, these still great sounding subs have been available from JBL since 1955

 

http://www.hifido.co.jp/photo/08/221/22165/a.jpg

[WynnD]

 

Although they weren't used for high power kick and bass back then, these still great sounding subs have been available from JBL since 1955

 

 

Did not know that. Can't think of a single drummer from that time that thought they needed to shake things off the shelves with their kick drum. (Did know a few bassists who did. I hated that.) Guess times have really changed when the drummer's real kick drum sound has to be modified to something else. (Isn't the kick drum usually as special to the drummer as his snare? Maybe that's cymbals.)

[Craig Vecchione]

Did not know that. Can't think of a single drummer from that time that thought they needed to shake things off the shelves with their kick drum. (Did know a few bassists who did. I hated that.) Guess times have really changed when the drummer's real kick drum sound has to be modified to something else. (Isn't the kick drum usually as special to the drummer as his snare? Maybe that's cymbals.)

 

Aren't different artistic expressions welcome? Rock 'n roll has always been about rebellion and innovation. Or were the Beatles just some no-good hooligans when they insisted upon overdriving the mixers at Abbey Road, among their many other experiments? How about The Who volume wars between Entwistle and Townsend. I know...that was only 40 years ago.

 

[mshifflett]

Guess times have really changed when the drummer's real kick drum sound has to be modified to something else.

 

You know, amplifying the kick drum doesn't necessarily mean that you are modifying the sound of it. It's the heartbeat of the band, it should be heard and felt to get the full effect I think. That's only my opinion though

[agedhorse]

 

Although they weren't used for high power kick and bass back then, these still great sounding subs have been available from JBL since 1955 http://www.hifido.co.jp/photo/08/221/22165/a.jpg

 

 

Ummmm, those were never subs. They were the low frequency section of a 2 way system, and rolled off pretty quickly below about 55-60Hz. They also weighed close to 200 lbs.

 

A common hot rod system would use a 2 x E-110 cabinet for mids and a 2420 for HF. That made a very nice sounding, but big and heavy full range system. The efficiency was in the 104dB/1W/1M range though.

 

The A-7 was also quite efficient, not 110dB, but something around 107dB average and sounded ok, especially considering what was around at the time. I still own 6 of the A4's, when I am done with them, they will stay where they live. I will walk away from them. They are 108-109dB and are reasonably flat to about 50Hz. They are also HUGE and HEAVY.

 

Power amps cost about $20-$30 per watt in today's dollars compared to $1/watt or less today. Speakers were built that way because it was cheaper than amplifier power.

 

If we had the capability back then, we would have used the extended bass that today's subwoofers deliver. That's why they were developed... to fill a need. Remember the movie Earthquake? It depended on subs. The best they could do at the time was the Cerwin Vega B-36, it was an order of magnitude better in efficiency and power handling (combined) compared with the product of the day below 50Hz. Not ideal but that's what drove the market. The market didn't drive the need.

[WynnD]

I'm a fan of artistic expressions. It's just too often that the sound engineer has a pre-conceived notion of how kick drums and basses are supposed to sound. When I run sound for a band, I match the sound of the bassist's amp to the sound coming out of the PA. I don't believe that it's my job as a sound engineer to change the sound of the artist, merely to amplify and balance it. If an engineer does the same with an acoustic kick drum, that extreme overdone kick sub-woofer marriage would cease to exist. (Just try getting that sound out of an acoustic drum without an amp. Hard, maybe impossible.)

[WynnD]

Didn't see Earthquake in a theater. Didn't EV make a 30" speaker that was used for that?

[Craig Vecchione]

I'm a fan of artistic expressions. It's just too often that the sound engineer has a pre-conceived notion of how kick drums and basses are supposed to sound. When I run sound for a band, I match the sound of the bassist's amp to the sound coming out of the PA. I don't believe that it's my job as a sound engineer to change the sound of the artist, merely to amplify and balance it. If an engineer does the same with an acoustic kick drum, that extreme overdone kick sub-woofer marriage would cease to exist. (Just try getting that sound out of an acoustic drum without an amp. Hard, maybe impossible.)

 

 

When you "too often" hear this sort of thing, do you ask the band whether they objected as well? Many successful bands view the entirety of the performance as artistic expression, and count on the sound crew to collaborate in creating their vision. Perhaps what you view as an abomination is their idea of the perfect kick sound, and the band worked closely with the soundco to acheive this.

 

You continue to crusade through this forum with a beef against anyone who doesn't share your rather narrow definition of what's good. Diff'rent strokes, bro.

[flanc]

 

I'm a fan of artistic expressions. It's just too often that the sound engineer has a pre-conceived notion of how kick drums and basses are supposed to sound. When I run sound for a band, I match the sound of the bassist's amp to the sound coming out of the PA. I don't believe that it's my job as a sound engineer to change the sound of the artist, merely to amplify and balance it. If an engineer does the same with an acoustic kick drum, that extreme overdone kick sub-woofer marriage would cease to exist. (Just try getting that sound out of an acoustic drum without an amp. Hard, maybe impossible.)

 

 

The reality of providing sound reinforcement for a band, is that in many cases, the BE has supplement what the talent is delivering to achieved to desired result...a result that is both desired by the band and is representative of the recorded sound of the original.

 

Case in point. The vocal often times is benefited by reverb, delay, pitch correction, doubling, harmonies, etc. The pure source is augmented to a new state that is desirable by the artist. Now, I wouldn't recommend a BE process an artists voice unless he was familiar with the desired end-state and was using his tools to get there. In the case of doing sound reinforcement for cover bands, the BE should be generally familiar with the material/genre of the music that is being covered by the band. If the band is doing modern (post 1970) r&r/funk/hip hop/reggae, etc. The kick drum is represented in recordings as a prominent and processed (gated, eq'ed, and often compressed) instrument..not at all like an acoustic, unreinforced kick.

 

Also, if you take each muso in a band and have them get their instruments to sound to how they like and then combine all of that into a mix....you'll likely have a good bit of mud. The kick drum and the bass have to complement each other, not compete. The BE has to trusted to have a good ear and the skills necessary to achieve a desirable mix.

 

It seems as though you have an agenda to fight the big, loud, and bottom heavy mixes that dominate today's live sound. That battle has been lost! This generation seems to like it that way and it's relatively easy and affordable to deliver.